[This post is a rewrite of one previously published in 2005.]
About four years ago I went on a youth mission trip to AtlantaFest. On the first afternoon, we went out to a few neighborhoods to throw an impromptu backyard bible club event. My group visited a Hispanic neighborhood. Most of the kids understood English, and the student minister led a bible study time, followed by an invitation. During the short message, the kids ignored the student minister and played their games, but during the invitation most were silent. About seven or eight kids prayed the magic prayer* and raised their hands when asked if they prayed.
A few weeks later, I spoke with my roommate Mark about that, in light of Bobby Welsh’s “baptize one million in a year” campaign. We both saw it as asinine, and expressed concern that the means don’t produce the desired ends. I said, “There are three problems with that whole deal. One, nobody was paying attention. Two, they prayed a ridiculous prayer that didn’t do any good because they didn’t know what they were doing or saying. And now we’re going to go back and tell the church that seven kids came to Christ. Give me a break.”
Mark responded, “And four, we’ve inoculated them. Like when you give someone an inoculation for a disease, you usually give them a dead or very mild version of the same virus. That allows them to be immune to the real disease when it comes.”
It’s amazing to me that often we refer to the old story, “if someone had the cure for cancer, wouldn’t you want to share the cure for it with them?” in response to evangelism. And here what we offer is a mild and often dead version of a very live Christianity, which immunizes them from the real thing later in life. And one day, someone will say, “did you pray this prayer?” because evangelistic styles will never change in the SBC, and those kids will say, “yes, we did.” And likely, they will die without knowing their Creator.
The Gospel we preach produces the churches we get. When we preach a false Gospel we can expect false Christians.
[Update: Read this post by Alan Cross for further discussion on the topic. He's a thousand times more thoughtful than I am.]
*It is my opinion that just as there is no such thing as the Catholic “magic bread and wine,” there is no such thing as the Baptist “magic prayer.”
by Joe Kennedy
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